


The Vampire Santino

by scribensdracones



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Multi, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 02:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3511973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribensdracones/pseuds/scribensdracones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Santino knows that Marius is coming for him- haunted by ill foreboding and Maharet's premonition, he decides to write down his own story for posterity to judge, unaware of the fact that this night of writing will be his last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Vampire Santino

There is no way to start writing, it seems. A thousand thoughts run through my head and I am scared of starting, for I fear what remembering will do to me. My name is Santino and I am a vampire. I am roughly 700 years old and I am currently sitting on the terrace of Maharet's mansion, surrounded by the wild jungle which shelters the twins and those they call guests. It's warm and noisy, I hear and smell more than I count to list here. My time is limited, I feel it, and so I try not to waste any and yet I do not feel any particular wish to hurry, for I know what lies ahead of me in the dusty corners of the past. When Louis du Point du Lac first spoke up, Eric and I were in Prague, I think, and we did not really care. When Lestat de Lioncourt rushed into the world, no one was able to ignore him. I just realized how I never really got to meet him. When Pandora wrote of her life, I was quite baffled that she, the silent one, chose to share her memories. And finally, Armand, returned from the dead, revealed his entire past to the world. It was then that my name was more than some vampire briefly mentioned. The satanist who killed Marius, burned his apprentices and molded Armand into the broken being encountered by Lestat centuries later. 

Three nights ago, Maharet called me to her hideout in the deep jungles. A bad feeling, and if there is anyone whose premonitions I trust, it is Maharet of whom I may or may not swoon at a later point. I try to give context. Indeed, we are good friends, I like to think so, and so I came thinking it would be nothing but paying a visit to someone I haven't seen in a while, which is not a while for a vampire, even less for one of her age. Now, here I sit, and I know that Marius wishes me dead. Maharet never shares all she knows, but she has let me know enough to make me feel fear. I cling to my dear life, and while I truly believe that Marius is a good man who will respect Maharet's words, I still feel cold and uneasy and so I sit and write. Is it vain of me to wish to be more than a minor character in another's work? Everyone judges, it's inevitable. So when those who never met me choose to judge, I want them to know the whole story. Such as many of us learned to understand Armand, even came to deeply pity him, so do I hope that maybe the judgement will be mild when it comes to my own self. 

I do not write to ask for absolution, for there is only one who can pardon me. Indeed, I wonder whether Marius would read this. Would he care to read it and maybe understand that there is no day I do not wonder what could have been? The truth is, out of all those I have wronged, it is his forgiveness I long for. Armand. Oh beautiful Armand, so cold and dead, he would smile at me and maybe feel confused. Shrug it off, say it's all forgiven. And after all these horrors, he seems to look back like a ghost, wondrously staring at whatever remains of his past, broken beyond the point of caring. Neither do I want Eric's forgiveness, for he loved me, and I think there still might be some love left in this golden heart of his. I hurt him far more than he ever deserved, and he has all reason to grudge me- and yet I feel as if one can forgive anything to one's beloved ones. I do not think Eric's forgiveness would ever satisfy me. But Marius... He didn't leave it all behind, even though he is a master of pretense, and he never loved me. No one will judge me harsher than he would, I think, and maybe it's this hard justice that makes me long for his clemency. I do not think that he will ever think of me as someone he could forgive. 

Maharet, Mael, Eric, Khayman... they all know me, spent so much time with me that I sometimes think they know me better than I do. I do not write for them, for there is nothing I could write that is not known to them already, those ancients who have been my companions for a long time.  
I don't write for Armand or Marius either, for I know I am in no place to expect anything of them. Even if I am another man today than I have been centuries ago- the atrocities I and others committed in my very name cannot be forgiven.  
I don't write for Pandora, Louis, Lestat, David, Jesse or any other vampire or mortal who might read this, for the vainest part of me fears that all honesty will not change anything. No. I write for myself, for as much as I fear remembering, I sure do love basking in self-pity, nostalgia and memories that I sometimes remember with greatest fondness. 

I am the vampire Santino and I want the world to know who I am.


End file.
